BV 
2070 
.L5 
18-6  5 


PRESENTED  TO  THE  LIBRARY 


OF 


PRINCETON  THEOLOGICSL  SEMINHRY 


BY 


f/Lps.  Ale3^andet*  Proudfit. 


BV  2070  .L5  1865 
Lillie,  John,  1812-1867 
The  hope  of  the  Church 


THE  HOPE  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


A 


MISSIONARY  ADDRESS, 


DELIVERED 


BEFORE  THE  SYNOD  OF  NEW  YORE, 


PEEKSKILL,  N.Y.,  OCTOBER  17,  1865, 


WITH    NOTES. 


y   BY 

JOHN    LILLIE,   D.D. 


NEW  YORK: 

26  COOPER  INSTITUTE. 


New  Yoek,  October  30, 1865. 


Dear  Sir: 

The  Address  which  you  recently  delivered  before  the 
Synod  of  New  York,  in  regard  to  the  chronological  relation 
of  the  Second  Advent  of  our  Lord  to  His  millennial  king- 
dom, contains  principles  of  Scripture  interpretation,  which, 
in  our  judgment,  demand  the  earnest  attention  of  the  Church 
of  God.  It  was  a  high  satisfaction  to  those  of  us  who  were 
present  on  that  occasion,  to  hear  these  principles  presented 
in  so  clear  and  impressive  a  manner.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, we  naturally  desire  to  secure  for  the  Address  a 
wide  circulation.  In  this  desire  we  are  joined  by  other 
brethren  who  were  not  present,  and  whose  names  are  here 
appended.  We  unite,  therefore,  in  the  earnest  request  that 
you  would  do  us  the  favor  to  furnish  a  copy,  at  your  earliest 
convenience,  for  publication. 

CHARLES  K.  IMBRIE, 
N.  WEST, 
R.  W.  DICKINSON, 
AUG3.  CRUIKSHANTJ,^ 
A.  D.  L.  JEWETT, 
W.  B.  LEE, 

STEPHEN  L.  MERSHON 
WM.  IRVIN, 
A.  B.  CONGER, 
JA3.  HARKNESS, 
J.  D.  WELLS, 
E.  R.  CRAVEN. 

To  Eev.  Jno.  Lillie,  D.  D. 


Kingston,  N.  Y.,  Nov.  11, 1865. 

Dear  Brethren  : 

I  cheerfully  place  at  your  disposal  the  Address  of  which 
you  request  a  copy  for  publication.  The  Notes,  which  have 
been  added  on  the  suggestion  of  some  of  yourselves,  and  of 
other  brethren,  will  not,  I  trust,  be  thought  to  impair  what- 
ever adaptation  it  may  have  for  usefulness. 
Tours,  in  the  kingdom  and  patience  of  Jesus  Christ, 


JOHN  LILLIE. 


To  the  Rev.  Drs.  Imbrie,  "West, 
Dickinson,  and  others. 


MISSIONARY  ADDRESS. 


That  the  Church  of  Christ  lives,  and  moves, 
and  has  her  being,  under  a  solemn  and  perpetual 
obHgation  to  preach  Christ's  gospel,  to  the  utter- 
most of  her  ability  and  opportunity,  to  every 
creature  (Mark  xvi.  15) ; — that  Christ  HimseK, 
for  whom,  during  His  absence,  the  Church  and 
the  Holy  Ghost  are  witnesses,  will  come  again 
in  visible,  personal  glory,  to  fulfil  the  promises, 
and  execute  the  judgment  written  (Acts  i.  11 ; 
Ps.  cxKx.  9) ; — that,  finally,  there  is  a  period  in 
the  future  history  of  our  world  when  "  the  earth 
shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord,  as  the 
waters  cover  the  sea,"^  and  **  they  shall  teach 
no  more  every  man  his  neighbour,  and  every  man 
his  brother,  saying,  Know  the  Lord :  for  they 
shall  all  know  Him  from  the  least  of  them  unto 


6  ADDEESS. 

tlie  greatest  of  tliem  "  (Is.  xi.  9 ;  Jer.  xxxi.  34) ; 
— on  tliese,  points  there  exists,  I  believe,  no 
doubt  or  difference  of  opinion  amongst  Chris- 
tians of  OTir  day  ;  certainly  there  is  none  amongst 
the  members  of  this  Synod.  The  agreement, 
however,  does  not  extend  to  the  question  of  the 
relation  in  which  these  points  stand  to  one  an- 
other ;  and  to  that  question,  therefore,  as  one 
not  merely  of  profoundest  interest  in  itself,  but 
of  direct  bearing  on  the  life  of  faith  and  hope, 
as  well  as  on  the  immediate  prospects  of  Chris- 
tendom, I  beg  leave  now  to  call  the  attention  of 
my  brethren.     (Note  A.) 

The  prevalent  opinion  in  many  quarters, 
especially  in  the  churches  of  Great  Britain  and 
America,  undoubtedly  is,  that  the  predicted 
triumph  of  the  gospel,  in  the  universal  reign 
of  righteousness  and  peace,  shall  precede  our 
Lord's  Second  Advent,  and  shall  itself  be  the 
proper  and  natural  result  of  the  missionary  and 
other  evangehstic  labours  of  His  followers. 

Now,  it  must  needs  be  confessed  that  this 
view,  common  as  it,  is,  and  however  great  a 
favourite  on  the  missionary  platform,  is  at  any 
rate  of  recent  origin.     It  is  very  questionable 


ADDRESS.  7 

whether,  even  so  late  as  two  hundred  years  ago, 
it  had  yet  been  heard  of  amongst  good  men. 
Not  a  trace  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  Standards 
of  Westminster,  or  in  the  Confessions  and  other 
remains  of  the  Reformation  period,  and  quite  as 
little  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers.  It  cannot, 
therefore,  allege  the  authority  of  antiquity  in  its 
behalf.  On  the  contrary,  nothing  could  be 
easier  than  to  adduce  from  the  records  of  those 
past  times  any  required  amount  of  repugnant 
and  irreconcileable  statement.      (Note  B.) 

But  this  fact,  although  a  fair  ground  cer- 
tainly for  suspicion,  is  not  necessarily  fatal  to 
the  theory.  It  is  just  possible,  nevertheless, 
that  the  theory,  novel  as  it  is,  may  be  one  of  the 
many  interesting  and  useful  discoveries  that  are 
the  boast  and  ornament  of  our  present  civiliza- 
,  tion  ;  and  if  so,  of  course  it  rests  on  some  equally 
solid  and  intelligible,  however  newly  detected, 
foundation. 

What,  then,  let  us  inquire,  is  the  foundation 
that  sustains  this  so  popular  idea  of  a  holy  and 
peaceful  world,  redeemed  from  Satan  and  the 
idols,  and  basking  for  long  ages  in  the  smile  of 
God,  prior  to  the  "  appearing  and  kingdom  "  (2 
Tim.  iv.  1)  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ? 


8  ADDRESS. 

Such  an  inquiry  is  often  met  by  a  good  deal 
of  eloquent  discourse  about  wliat  is  called  the 
power  of  truth — the  truth,  especially,  of  revela- 
tion. But  that  will  not  do  for  us,  who  believe 
that  Divine  truth  itseK  has  no  inherent  power 
whatsoever  to  convert  a  single  soul,  any  more 
than  the  sun's  ray  can  give  sight  to  the  blind, 
or  quicken  the  dead. 

Then,  it  is  said  that  God  has  a  special  in- 
terest in  the  gospel,  and  exercises  a  watchful 
supervision  over  its  progress  in  the  earth. 
"Wliich,  no  doubt,  is  true  enough  ;  but  it  is 
very  far  from  proving  anything  in  regard  to 
"  the  times  or  the  seasons,  which  the  Father 
hath  put  in  His  own  power."  (Acts  i.  7.)  We 
know  that  God  never  speaks  in  vain,  and  that 
not  one  word,  which  goeth  forth  out  of  His 
mouth,  shall  return  to  Him  void ;  but  what,  in 
any  instance,  shall  be  the  particular  effect  of  that 
word  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  sphere,  is  alto- 
gether a  different  question.  He  himself  assures 
us  that  "  it  shall  accomplish  that  which  He 
pleases,  and  shall  prosper  in  the  thing  whereto 
He  sent  it."  (Is.  Iv.  11.)  But  that  does  by  no 
means  enable  us  to  determine  what  the  thing  is, 
that  pleases  God  in  the  mission  of  His  word, 


ADDBESS.  y 

and  TV'liose  prosperous  accomplishment  is  tlius 
secured.  The  word  spoken  in  Paradise  did  not 
fail,  when  Adam  fell.  The  word  thundered  forth 
on  the  top  of  Sinai  did  not  fail,  because  at  the 
foot  of  the  burning,  quaking  mount,  the  tribes 
ran  riot  in  idolatry.  The  ministry  of  prophets 
was  no  failure,  though  few  or  none  believed  their 
report,  and  most  of  them  died  the  death  of  mar- 
tyrs. Nay,  when  the  Personal  Word  himseK 
became  incarnate,  and  spake  as  never  man 
spake,  the  Living  Witness  to  His  own  truth, 
what  followed?  The  judgment  hall  and  the 
cross.  Was,  then,  Christ's  life  on  earth  a  failure, 
any  more  than  His  death  ?  He  was  "  despised 
and  rejected  of  men  "  (Is.  liii.  3),  and  so,  with  the 
vast  majority  of  men,  even  in  so-called  Christian 
lands.  He  continues,  and  that  after  eighteen 
hundred  years  of  gospel  preaching,  to  t^iis  day. 
There  is  surely  little  evidence  in  all  this  that,  at 
the  end  of  eighteen  thousand  years  of  gospel 
preaching,  matters  would  be  essentially  changed. 
And  is  it  not,  in  arguing  this  great  question, 
an  illogical  fatuity  of  which  school-boys  might 
be  ashamed,  to  retail  to  us,  as  is  sometimes 
done,  with  whatever  pathos  and^  graphic  power, 
this  or  that  case  of  striking  individual  conver- 
1* 


10  ADDKESS. 

sion,  and  all  tlie  while  ignore  the  immense, 
multitudinous  majority  of  cases  of  obdurate  im- 
penitence ? 

And  yet,  all  the  while  God's  word  is  accom- 
plishing that  which  He  pleases,  and  prospering 
in  the  thing  whereto  He  sent  it.  And  when  the 
witnesses  "  shall  have  finished  their  testimony  '* 
(Rev.  xi.  7),  the  mighty  and  infalUble  efficacy 
of  the  truth  which  they  proclaimed  will  be  no 
longer  scoffed  at,  or  doubted,  by  any.  For  then 
will  be  revealed  its  two-fold  eternal  demonstra- 
tion, heaven  and  hell.  In  the  believing  antici- 
pation of  both,  the  great  Apostle  looked  up  from 
the  scene  of  his  conflicts,  and  exclaimed  :  "  We 
are  unto  God  a  sweet  savour  of  Christ,  in  them 
that  are  saved,  and  in  them  that  perish." 
(2  Cor.  ii.  15.) 

"We  may,  therefore,  very  safely  dismiss  at 
once  all  such  g^^asz-philosophical  reasoning  from 
what  we  might  suppose  to  be  the  nature  of  the 
case,  as  well  as  our  own  poor  a  priori  notions  as 
to  what  would  be  the  most  fitting  course  for  God 
to  pursue  in  the  creation  of  the  new  heavens  and 
new  earth  of  prophecy.  "  His  thoughts  are  not 
our  thoughts,  neither  are  our  ways  His  ways." 


ADDRESS.  li 

(Is.  Iv.  8;  Ixv.  17.)  Most  assuredly  we  know, 
and  can  know,  notliing  whatever  on  this  subject, 
except  what  He  has  chosen  to  tell  us.  And  so 
the  whole  matter  just  comes  to  this  :  What  proof 
is  there  in  Scripture,  that  this  world  is  to  be  re- 
newed by  the  gospel  before  the  Lord  returns  ? 

Now  you,  brethren,  may  have  been  more  for- 
tunate than  I ;  but,  so  far  as  I  can  recollect,  the 
only  show  of  proof  of  this  kind  that  I  have  ever 
met  with,  has  consisted  in  liberal  quotations  from 
the  old  Hebrew  prophets  of  their  glowing  de- 
scriptions of  "the  times  of  restitution  of  all 
thiAgs  "  (Acts  iii.  21)  ; — quotations  made  freely 
enough  and  in  the  lump,  but  without  much 
scrutiny  of  their  textual  connection.  These 
beautiful  extracts,  therefore,  treated  in  this  easy 
off-hand  style,  while  conclusively  establishing 
the  blessed  fact  that  such  times  are  still  in 
reserve,  since  they  have  not  been  seen  yet,  shed 
no  Light  at  all  on  the  only  point  that  we  are  here 
concerned  with,  to  wit,  the  chronological  rela- 
tion of  events. 

No  sooner,  however,  do  we  look  into  those 
prophecies  for  ourselves,  than  we  perceive  that 
the  bright  consummation  is  never  once  referred 
to  as  that  ia  which  these  "  times  of  the  Gentiles  " 


12  ADDKESS. 

(Luke  sxi.  24)  are  to  issue  througli  a  process  of 
gradual  amelioration.  Uniformly  it  is  intro- 
duced by  God's  returning  favour  to  Israel — hj 
tlie  wrathful  destruction  of  His  and  their  enemies 
in  the  hour  of  their  greatest  strength  and  con- 
fidence— by  the  appearing  of  the  Lord  in  His 
glory  to  build  up  Zion — and  by  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead. 

I  shall  not  stop  to  make  good  this  statement 
(Note  C),  as  I  think  could  readily  be  done  in  all 
its  parts.  Our  time  will  barely  suffice  for  a  rapid 
glance  at  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  on 
this  topic. 

For  surely  in  the  New  Testament,  if  any- 
where, we  may  fairly  expect  to  find  some  clear 
intimation  of  the  universal  triumph  of  the 
gospel  during  the  present  dispensation,  if  indeed 
any  such  thing  is  to  occur.  In  leaving  His  dis- 
ciples without  the  strength  and  joy  of  His  pres- 
ence, and  sending  them  forth  to  their  "  great 
fight  of  afflictions"  (Heb.  x.  32),  the  compas- 
sionate Saviour  cannot  surely  have  concealed 
from  them  the  fact,  if  it  be  a  fact,  that  through 
their  preaching,  and  the  instrumentality  of  the 
Church  which  they  were  to  found  in  His  name, 


ADDRESS.  13 

the  world  at  large,  all  its  hostile  governments 
and  populations,  should,  during  His  dreaded 
absence,  be  subdued  to  the  love  and  service  of 
their  Lord. 

Now,  my  first  remark  is,  that  never  once  did 
our  Lord  himself,  while  He  was  still  with  us,  let 
fall  a  single  word  that  could  fairly  be  understood 
as  encouraging  any  such  hope ! — silence  most 
significant,  if  not  at  once  decisive  of  the  whole 
question.  To  my  mind  it  is  decisive,  when,  in 
addition  to  that  fact,  we  find  that,  in  foreshowing 
the  reception  His  servants  and  their  message 
should  meet  with  in  the  world.  He  speaks  of  little 
else  but  rejection,  and  contumely,  and  wrong,  as 
their  present  portion.  He  even  instances  it  as 
a  proof  of  'His  fidehty,  that  He  has  "told  us 
before  "  (Matt.  xxiv.  25).  "With  what  an  earnest 
solemnity  does  He  set  forth  Himself  as  the 
example  of  suffering  to  all  His  people  !  "  If  the 
world  hate  you,  ye  know  that  it  hated  me  before 
it  hated  you.  If  ye  were  of  the  world,  the  world 
would  love  his  own ;  but  because  ye  are  not  of 
the  world,  but  I  have  chosen  you  out  of  the 
world,  therefore  the  world  hateth  you.  Eemem- 
ber  the  word  that  I  said  unto  you,  The  servant 
is  not  greater  than  his  Lord.    If  they  have  per- 


14  ADDEESS. 

secuted  me,  they  will  also  persecute  you  ;  if  they 
have  kept  my  saying,  they  will  keep  yours  also." 
(John  XV.  18-20.) 

If  it  is  objected,  that  these  words  were  ad- 
dressed to  our  Lord's  immediate  disciples,  and 
may  have  no  application  to  the  ages  that  were  to 
follow,  we  might,  in  reply,  urge  the  demand: 
Where  has  our  Lord  so  much  as  hinted  that  the 
mutual  relations  of  the  Church  and  the  world 
are  ever,  during  this   economy,  to  differ  from 
what  they  were  in  the  days  of  His.  flesh,  and  in 
His  apostles'  days?    But  it  is  far  from  being 
true  that  the  Great  Teacher  is  merely  silent  and 
neutral  on  the  point.     "  Let  both  tares  and  wheat 
grow  together  until  tlie  harvest "  (Matt.  xiii.  30), 
said  the  householder  to  his  impatient  servants ; 
and  so  the  wicked  shall  not  be   severed  from 
among  the  just,  "  until  the  end  of  this  age,  when 
the  righteous  shall  shine  forth  .as  the  sun  in  the 
kingdom  of  their  Father."     (vv.  40-43.)     Or,  ac- 
cording to  that  other  parabolic  illustration  of 
the  same  truth,  the  gospel  net  is  still  out  at  sea, 
and  very  various  are  the  kinds  of  fish  it  has 
enclosed.     By-and-by,  "  at  the  end  of  the  age," 
not  sooner,    it  shall  be    "  drawn    to    shore," 
and  the  angels  shaU  "  sit  down  and  gather  the 


ADDRESS. 


15 


good  into  vessels,  but  cast    tlie    bad    away." 
(vv.  47-49. ) 

Or  take  tlie  great  prophetic  discourse  in 
Matthew's  Gospel  (xxiv.,  xxv.),  and  nothing  can 
well  be  more  conclusive.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  curiosity  and  queries  of  the  disciples 
reached  onward  to  the  time  of  their  Lord's 
promised  return  ;  and  His  answer  embraces  the 
whole  period  that  was  to  intervene.  T\Tiere, 
then,  I  ask,  is  there  in  all  that  picture  of  Gentile 
times,  sketched  by  the  hand  of  Omniscience,  I 
say  not  the  shadow  of  a  millennium,  but  a  vacant 
spot  even  where  it  can  be  introduced  ?  Is  not 
the  entire  canvas  crowded  with  the  symbols  and 
ensigns  of  a  "great  tribulation"?  and  do  not 
these  tokens  rather  increase  in  number  and  terror 
as  the  final  catastrophe  draws  near?  "We  see  the 
Holy  City  in  ruins,  and  its  sacred  dust  trampled 
for  ages  and  generations  by  insulting  Gentiles. 
The  gospel,  indeed,  can  be  traced  in  her  march 
throughout  "  all  the  world,  for  a  witness  unto  all 
nations  "  (Note  D) ;  but  neither  are  we  suffered 
for  an  instant  to  forget  that  her  road  lies  through 
an  enemy's  land.  Troops  of  antichrists,  im- 
postors, and  apostates,  hover  round  and  assault 
her  at  every  step  of  her  progress.     Their  re- 


16  ADDEESS. 

sources  of  violence  and  frand  are  seconded,  we 
can  observe,  by  tlie  malignity  and  force  of  devils, 
"working  miracles";  until,  tlirougli  tlieir  joint 
influence,  instead  of  tbe  world  being  transformed 
into  the  Cliurcli,  the  Church  itself  is  apparently 
lost  in  the  world,  and  the  fearful  question  is  put 
dehberately,  as  if  it  were  a  doubtful  matter  to  the 
eye  of  the  descending  Judge  :  "  Nevertheless, 
when  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  shall  He  find  faith 
in  the  earth?" 

Notwithstanding  the  confidence,  therefore,  of 
those  who  are  expecting  their  millennium  during 
the  Saviour's  absence — "times  of  refreshing," 
but  not  "  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord" — the 
"  restitution  of  all  things,"  but  without  the  visible 
hand  of  the  great  Eestorer  (Acts  iii.  19,  21) — 
they  will  never  be  able  to  alter  the  fact,  that  the 
discourses  of  Christ  are  simply  irreconcileable 
with  their  theory — in  other  words,  with  all  those 
pleasant  anticipations  of  glorious,  happy  times 
in  this  present  evil  world,  with  which  Christians 
have  been  comforting,  and,  as  I  believe,  deluding 
one  another,  of  late  years.     (Note  E.) 

But  perhaps  these  gloomy  prognostications 
of  evil  were  subsequently  relieved  by  revelations 


ADDBESS.  17 

made  to  the  Church  through  the  Apostles.  "Well, 
is  it  so?  Kead  first  the  record  of  their  Acts, 
and  then  their  writings  from  the  beginning  of 
Romans  to  the  last  verse  of  Jude,  and  mark  the 
text,  if  it  can  be  found,  which  brightens  in  the 
least  the  temporal  prospects  of  the  faith.  Breth- 
ren, there  is  no  such  text.  If  there  be,  let  it  be 
named.  On  the  other  hand,  hours  might  be 
spent  in  barely  quoting  the  texts  which  prove  to 
a  demonstration,  that  the  appropriate  work  of 
this  age  is,  not  to  convert  the  whole  world — still 
less  to  be  ever  talking  about  so  great  a  work,  and 
yet  doing,  alas,  how  little ! — ^flinging,  that  is,  a 
very  few  of  the  smallest  crumbs  from  our  table — 
for  its  accomplishment  (Note  F) ; — but  it  is,  at 
every  sacrifice  of  labour  and  of  money,  by  the 
might  of  faith,  the  activity  of  love,  and  the 
energy  of  prayer,  to  gather  out  of  the  world  the 
elect  "  Church  of  God,  which  He  purchased  with 
His  own  blood."  (Acts  xx.  28.)  The  missionary 
or  the  church,  whose  zeal  would  be  in  danger  of 
being  damped  by  having  this  result  proposed  to 
them  as  the  reward  of  their  efforts,  is  not  hkely, 
in  our  humble  opinion,  to  do  a  great  deal  in 
the  way  of  converting  the  world,  either  in  one 
generation,  according  to  the  enthusiastic  cal- 


18  ADDRESS. 

culation  of  some,  or  in  ten  thousand  generations. 
(Note  G.) 

At  all  events,  it  was  a  task  that  satisfied  tho 
ambition  of  primitive  martyrs.  Humbly  to  sub- 
ject their  own  schemes  to  the  Divine  plan,  and 
carefully  to  correct  and  chasten  their  own  fondest 
hopes  by  the  Divine  promise,  was  one  of  the  first 
lessons  taught  them  by  the  Spirit  of  Pentecost. 
"  Men  and  brethren,"  said  James,  in  the  council 
of  Jerusalem,  "  hearken  unto  me  :  Simeon  hath 
declared,  how  God  at  the  first  did  visit  the  Gen- 
tiles, to  talce  out  of  them  a  people  for  His  name.^* 
(Acts  XV.  13,  14.)  This — if  we  will  believe  the 
Apostles — this,  and  nothing  more  than  this,  is 
the  immediate  design  of  God  in  the  present  mar- 
vellous dispensation,  while  Jerusalem  is  trodden 
down  of  the  Gentiles,  and  the  rapturous  harps 
of  Judah  hang  silent  on  the  willows.  It  is  not, 
because  it  was  not  intended  by  God  to  be,  a  dis- 
pensation of  effectual  blessing  to  all  mankind. 
It  is  altogether,  and  from  first  to  last,  and  in 
every  land,  partial  and  limited  in  its  influences 
and  triumphs,  the  apostolic  age  being  in  this 
respect,  not  merely  the  prelude,  but  a  sample, 
and  surely  a  very  favourable  sample,  of  the  whole. 
To  include,  therefore,  in  that  whole  such  ulterior 


ADDRESS.  19 

facts  as  the  binding  of  Satan,  and  the  casting 
him  out  of  the  earth — the  national  restoration  of 
the  Jews,  and  the  national  conversion  of  both 
Jews  and  Gentiles — the  cleansing  of  man's  dwel- 
ling place  from  the  pollutions  and  oppressions, 
the  sins  and  sorrows,  the  tears,  and  blood,  and 
curse  of  ages — in  a  word,  to  claim  for  our  Gen- 
tile times,  and  as  the  certain  fruit  of  Gentile 
missions,  the  introduction  of  millennial  holiness 
and  peace  and  joy,  is  simply  a  delusion  of  that 
very  Gentile  conceit,  against  which  the  Apostle 
of  the  Gentiles  so  earnestly  warned  us.  (Kom.  xi. 
25.)  Evidently  the  inspired  prolocutor  of  that 
first  and  greatest  of  Ecclesiastical  Councils  had 
no  such  idea.  And  yet  we  may  suppose  that  in 
largeness  of  view,  and  in  ardour  of  zeal,  James 
was  not  a  whit  behind  those  in  our  day,  who 
have  sometimes  distinguished  themselves  by  a 
nice  estimate  of  the  amount  of  money  required 
to  convert  till  world  in  thirty  years.  Surrounded 
as  he  was  by  the  supernatural  splendour  and 
energies  of  Pentecost,  his  undazzled  eye  meekly 
followed  the  finger  of  God,  as  it  wrought  in  quite 
different  style  towards  a  quite  different  consum- 
mation. God,  said  he,  is  "  visiting  the  Gentiles, 
to  take  out  of  them  a  people  for  His  name." 


20  ADDKESS. 

And  just  so  Paul,  even  in  his  most  ecstatic 
mood,  did  not  look  for  tlie  ceasing  of  the  groans 
of  the  burdened  Church,  or  of  the  sympathetic 
groans  of  a  travaiHng  creation,  until  the  times 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  at  the  appearing 
of  Christ,  and  the  manifestation  along  with  Him 
of  aU  the  sons  of  God.     (Rom.  viii.  19-23.)* 

Having  unfolded  elsewhere,t  I  shall  here  say 
nothing  of  the  unanswerable  argument  furnished 
by  Paul's  prophetic  account  in  the  Second  Epis- 
tle to  the  Thessalonians,  of  the  Antichristian 
Apostacy,  and  its  relations  to  Christ's  Second 
Advent.  Indeed,  with  regard  to  all  the  Epistles, 
I  must  content  myself  with  reminding  you,  that 
the  same  dead  silence  prevails  throughout  as  to 
the  expected  conquest  of  the  world,  while  intima- 
tions of  the  most  unequivocal  character  abound 
of  a  vast  increase  of  error  and  ungodliness  in  the 
latter  days.  Call  to  mind,  dear  brethren,  the 
appalHng  portraitures,  as  given  by  5^ul  (1  Tim. 
iv.  1-3 ;  2  Tim.  iii.  1-9),  and  Peter  (2  Pet.  ii.), 
and  Jude,  of  the  leading  features  that  shall  mark 
the  close  of  the  Gentile  dispensation — descrip- 

*  For  a  discussion  of  this  text,  see  my  volume  on  The  Per- 
petuity of  the  Earth. 

t  Lectures  on  the  Epistles  of  Paul  to  the  Thessalonians. 


ADDEESS.  21 

tions  so  strangely  at  variance  witli  tliose  to 
•whicli  the  fancy  of  the  modern  Church  is  accus- 
tomed— and  you  will  at  least  confess  that  these 
men  had  no  wish  to  keep  their  brethren  in  the 
dark  respecting  the  disastrous  fortunes  of  God's 
truth  in  the  age  that  was  then  just  begun,  nor 
any  fear  that  the  information  would  cut  the 
sinews  of  evangelical  exertion.  Everywhere 
they  tell  us  plainly,  that,  when  the  Lord  Jesus 
shall  be  revealed  from  heaven,  it  will  be  "  in 
flaming  fire,  taking  vengeance  "  on  the  disobec^- 
ient  nations.  (2  Thess.  i.  7,  8).  Nay,  Christen- 
dom itself  will  but  resemble  some  horrid  and 
mountainous  funeral  pyre,  heaped  up  and  ready 
for  the  burning. 

And,  finally,  if  we  advance  in  our  examina- 
tion towards  the  wonders  of  the  Apocalyptic 
scenery,  the  very  first  sight  that  meets  the  eye 
of  faith,  as  if  to  assure  our  hearts  that,  whatever 
may  be  the  intermediate  trials  of  the  Church, 
they  shall  all  issue  in  the  realization  of  her  hope, 
is  the  vision  of  the  Son  of  Man  "  coming  with 
clouds,"  as  the  Judge  of  a  surprised  and  "wailing" 
world  (Kev.  i.  7) ;  and  even  so  the  very  last  word, 
with  which  the  Amen,  the  Faithful  and  True 


22  ADDEESS. 

Witness,  closes  tlie  long  line  of  revelation,  and 
dismisses  the  Churcli  from  His  presence  to  tlie 
warfare  of  ages,  is  a  renewed  promise  of  His  own 
speedy  return,  (xxii.  20.)  And  what  truth  do 
the  stupendous  disclosures  of  the  intervening 
chapters  teach  more  clearly  and  impressively, 
than  that,  until  that  promise  be  fulfilled,  we 
should  look  in  vain  for  any  period  of  effectual 
respite  from  the  thick-coming  waves  of  sorrow  ? 
Thus,  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Seven  Churches 
the  people  of  God  are  uniformly  reminded  of 
the  future  kingdom,  with  its  blessed  variety  of 
heavenly  and  eternal  glories,  as  their  peculiar, 
their  only  reward,  (chaps,  ii.  iii.)  We  listen  to 
the  "  new  song  "  of  the  Royal  Priesthood,  and 
we  hear  an  exulting  anticipation  of  "  reigning  on 
the  earth."  But  that  song  is  sung  by  represen- 
tatives of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  who  are 
even  now  resting  from  their  labours,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  enthroned  Lamb.  (v.  8-10.)  The 
loud  appeal  for  vengeance  of  souls  beneath  the 
altar  is  answered  by  a  gracious  assurance  that 
the  "  Lord,  holy  and  true,"  will  not  fail  to  avenge 
them  speedily,  as  soon  as  the  work  of  -martyr- 
dom is  itself  fulfilled  in  the  person  of  "  their 
fellow-servants  and  their  brethren."     (vi.  10, 11.) 


ADDEESS.  23 

The  innumerable,  wliite-robed,  palm-bearing 
multitude,  that  is  seen  in  high  festival  and 
solemn  triumph,  celebrating  the  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles, are  they  who  have  been  sealed  and 
gathered  "  out  of  all  nations,  and  kindreds,  and 
people,  and  tongues,"  and  they  have  all  tasted 
the  bitterness  of* "  the  great  tribulation."  (vii. 
9-14.)  The  frequent  proclamation  made  by 
heavenly  voices  of  "  Woe,  woe,  woe,  to  the  in- 
habiters  of  the  earth  "  (viii.  13 ;  ix.  12  :  xi.  14 ; 
xii.  12),  ever  and  anon  startles  the  ear,  like  the 
irrepressible  outcry  of  him  of  old,  who  warned 
"  the  people,  and  the  city,  and  the  temple,"  of 
their  doom.  But  in  spite  of  all  warnings,  and  of 
ever-recurring  judgments,  the  ungodly  nations 
"  repent  not  of  the  works  of  their  hands  "  (ix.  20, 
21 ;  xvi.  9-11),  and  God's  witnesses  are  "  clothed 
in  sackcloth  "  (xi.  3),  and  the  heavenly,  sun-clad, 
star-crowned  Woman  is  forced  to  flee  from  before 
her  enemies,  and  dwells  in  the  wilderness,  where 
she  is  nourished  in  secret  by  her  Divine  Cham- 
pion, (xii.  1-6.)  That "  power  over  all  kindreds, 
and  tongues,  and  nations,"  which  of  right  belongs 
to  her,  as  the  promised  dowry  of  "  the  Bride,  the 
Lamb's  wife,"  is  usurped  (xiii.)  by  a  Beast  out  of 
the  sea,  on  whose  heads  is  the  name  of  bias- 


24  ADDRESS. 

phemj,  and  tlie  "  golden  cup  "  of  worldly  pleas-. 
ure  and  honour  is  "in  tlie  hand "  of  lier  impure, 
harlot  rival,  (xvii.)  It  is  true  that  "the  ever- 
lasting gospel "  does  never  wholly  perish  from 
the  earth ;  nay,  it  is  true  that,  just  before  the 
dread  crisis  of  wrath,  its  merciful  voice  is  hfted 
up  in  perhaps  a  louder,  more  i^gent,  general  call 
than  ever  before,  at  least  since  the  apostolic  age. 
(xiv.  6-8.)  But  be  it  carefully  noted,  that  neither 
does  this  last  visitation  of  God's  long-suffering 
avail  to  avert  "  the  hour  of  His  judgment."  Great 
Babylon  "  hearkens  not  to  the  voice  of  charmers, 
charm  they  ever  so  wisely."  She,  therefore,  falls 
— suddenly  falls — "  in  one  hour" — "  thrown  down 
with  violence,"  into  the  fiery  flood,  "like  a  great 
millstone  cast  into  the  sea  "  by  the  might  of  an 
angel,  (xvi  l!)  And  not  less  plainly  are  we  told, 
that,  when  "  the  battle  of  that  great  day  of  God 
Almighty  "  (xvi.  14)  is  to  be  fought,  "  heaven  is 
opened,"  and  He,  whose  "name  is  called  the 
Word  of  God,"  re-appears  at  the  head  of  His 
redeemed  armies,     (xix.  11, 13,  14.) 

It  is,  then,  as  we  devoutly  believe,  a  vain 
thing — and  affectionately  we  invite  our  brethren 
in  Christ  to  weigh  the  matter,  or  at  least,  to  bear 


ADDRESS.  25 

with  us  in  our  boldness — an  utterly  vain  thing, 
let  men  say,  and  strive,  and  scoff  as  they  will,  to 
expect  "  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  to  become 
the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ," 
until,  the  seventh  angel  having  sounded,  God's 
wrath  comes  upon  the  angry  nations,  and  "  the 
time  of  the  dead,  that  they  should  be  judged, 
and  that  Thou  shouldest  give  reward  unto  Thy 
servants  the  prophets,  and  to  the  saints,  and 
them  that  fear  Thy  name,  small  and  great." 
(Kev.  xi.  15-18.)  And  what  reward  is  that,  if  not 
the  holy  blessedness  of  such  as  "  have  part  in  the 
first  resurrection,"  and  who  "  live  and  reign  with 
Christ  a  thousand  years"?  (xx.  4,  6.)  Then 
will  "  the  holy  city,  new  Jerusalem,  come  down 
from  God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride 
adorned  for  her  husband,"  and  wiU  fill  with  her 
glory  all  the  earth,     (xxi.  2,  24-26.) 

On  a  review  of  the  whole  subject,  we  feel 
abundantly  justified  in  adopting  for  ourselves 
the  emphatic  language  of  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished members  of  the  English  Church  :  * 
"  From  first  to  last  the  consent  and  harmony  is 
unbroken.  *    There  is  not  one  single  passage 

*  Rev.  T.  R.  Birks. 


26  ADDEESS. 

whicli  implies  a  long  period  of  rest  and  triumph 
before  the  Lord's  return ;  there  are  many,  very 
many,  which  exclude  it,  and  prove  it  to  be  im- 
possible. .  .  There  is  no  balance,  no  division 
of  evidence  on  this  point :  it  lies  entirely,  and 
without  exception,  on  one  side." 

But  now,  in  conclusion,  we  shall  be  asked — 
Must  we,  then,  give  up  all  hope  for  the  nations  ? 
Shall  the  day  never  dawn,  of  which  so  many 
prophets  from  of  old  have  sung,  when  the  eye  of 
God,  lookiDg  down  from  heaven,  shall  rest  upon 
a  scene  more  glorious  by  far  than  that  in  which 
it  rejoiced  on  the  morning  of  the  first  sabbath  ? 
To  all  such  queries  our  answer  is,  "  God  forbid  1" 
Nay,  brethren,  we  seek  not  to  check  the  aspira- 
tions of  faith,  while  we  labour  to  establish  faith 
on  the  only  sure  foundation  of  the  word.  Ours 
is  not  the  malign  ambition  that  would  chill  the 
heart  of  benevolence,  and  quench  the  flame  of 
hope  in  the  bosom  of  the  man  that  loves  his  kind. 
Eather,  that  hope  we  would  glorify,  by  raising  it 
to  a  higher  sphere,  and  subjecting  it  to  the 
powers  of  the  world  that  is  to  come.  So  lar 
from  resting  in  the  thought,  that  earth  with  her 
teemiag  myriads  shall  eventually  be  destroyed, 


ADDRESS.  27 

or  that,  shrouded  in  the  pall  of  "  gross  darkness" 
which  now  covers  the  peoples  (Is.  Ix.  2),  *  she 
shall  be  sent  forth,  like  Cain,  under  an  eternal 
curse,  a  fugitive  from  the  presence  of  God,  our 
very  dehght  is  to  trace,  as  God  may  enable  us, 
the  path  of  life,  along  which  she  shall  yet  be 
brought  with  singing,  and  everlasting  joy  upon 
her  head,  a  redeemed  captive — a  welcome  guest 
— a  Eoyal  Bride — into  the  hohest  of  all. 

Far  be  it  from  us  to  question,  that  of  all  that 
God  hath  spoken  to  the  fathers,  of  the  times  of 
restitution,  not  one  jot  or  tittle  shall  fail  of  a 
glorious  accompHshment.  But  may  we  not  ven- 
ture to  claim  that  we  have  succeeded  in  proving 
irrefragably  from  Scripture,  that  no  such  con- 
summation is  to  be  expected,  or  can  occur,  during 
the  present  Gentile  economy  ?  And  what,  then, 
is  the  inference,  but  that  it  y^'^ follow  ? 

And,  meanwhile,  beloved  brethren,  our  pres- 
ent duty  is  as  plain  as  it  is  urgent.  By  word  and 
by  life,  as  individuals  and  in  our  corporate 
church  fellowship,  we  are  called  to  testify,  in  our 
various  spheres  of  labour,  at  home  and  abroad, 

*  a^js^V  ;  Sept.  i^vq* 


28  ADDRESS. 

to  Jews  and  Gentiles,  in  every  land  beneath  the 
sun,  the  truth  and  grace  and  glory  of  our  Lord. 
Thus  giving  all  patient,  earnest,  prayerful  dili- 
gence to  our  allotted  task  of  planting  and  water- 
ing, let  us  not  murmur  nor  faint  if,  after  all  our 
toils  and  sacrifices,  the  immediate  increase  is 
neither  such  nor  so  large  as  we  might  have  de- 
sired and  hoped  for.  (1  Cor.  iii.  6,  7.)  To  every 
faithful,  though  suffering,  labourer  in  Christ's 
vineyard  it  is  surely  a  most  blessed  and  animat- 
ing thought — one  that  may  well  cheer  and 
strengthen  us  under  every  heavy  burden  of  care, 
and  disappointment,  and  manifold  temptations 
— that  He  whom  we  serve  *'  knows  our  works, 
and  tribulation,  and  poverty."  (Kev.  ii.  9.)  * 
Great,  also,  shall  be  our  recompense  of  reward. 

Let  us,  then,  brethren,  arise,  and  yielding 
neither  to  faint-hearted,  unbelieving  languor,  on 
the  one  hand,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  idle 
illusions  of  an  unscriptural  confidence,  let  us 
address  ourselves  with  fresh  zeal  to  the  fulfilment 
of  this  our  high  caUing  to  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature,  and  so  work  together  with  God 
in  His  present  gracious  visitation  of  the  nations. 
Nor  will  either  the  work  itself  be  hindered,  or 
our  love  for  it  impaired,  if  we  shall  henceforth 


ADDEESS.  29 

be  enabled  more  habitually  to  remember  that,  in 
converting  a  sinner — one  sinner — from  the  error 
of  his  way,  we  not  only  save  a  soul  from  death, 
and  deepen  the  joy  of  angels,  but  we,  at  the  same 
time,  further  the  accomphshment  of  the  number 
of  God's  elect,  and  hasten  the  coming  of  the 
Lord.* 

*  "  Beseeching  Thee  that  it  may  please  Thee,  of  Thy  gracious 
goodness,  shortly  to  accomplish  the  number  of  Thine  elect,  and 
to  hasten  Thy  kingdom."— Church  of  England  Order  for  the 
Burial  of  the  Dead, 


NOTES. 


NOTES 


NOTE  A,  p.   6. 

Some  memberi3  of  Synod,  it  has  been  intimated 
to  me,  while  they  were  aware  of  the  interesting 
nature  of  the  question  proposed  for  discussion,  yet 
inchned  to  doubt  the  propriety  of  making  it  the 
theme  of  a  missionary  discourse.  As  to  that,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  speaker  could  judge  only  accord- 
ing to  his  own  conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  view 
presented.  For,  if  true,  it  is  assuredly  important, 
and  the  view  to  which  it  is  opposed  must  be  as  per- 
nicious as  it  is  false,  involving  a  very  serious  mis- 
apprehension of  God's  revealed  counsels,  and  a  flat 
contradiction  of  His  immutable  word,  and  dislodg- 
ing, to  the  full  extent  of  its  influence,  the  cause  of 
missions  from  its  only  scriptural  foundation  and 
relations  to  the  Divine  plan.  "When  called  on, 
therefore,  to  address  the  ministers  and  elders  of 
the  churches  on  that  great  enterprise  of  Christian 
2*  * 


34  NOTES. 

philanthropy,  I  really  could  think  of  no  other  topic 
so  seasonable  and  urgent.  If  I  hesitated  at  all,  it 
was  from  the  fear  of  being  suspected  of  a  design 
simply  to  provoke  controversy,  or  of  a  wish  to 
obtrude  on  my  brethren  private  opinions,  merely 
because  those  opinions  were  not  generally  accept- 
able. But  as  it  is  well  for  us  ever  to  follow  con- 
science in  bearing  witness  to  the  truth,  at  whatever 
risk  of  misconception  of  our  motives,  so  it  becomes 
me  here  to  express  my  thanks  to  God  and  my 
brethren  for  the  earnest  attention,  and  patient 
candour,  with  which  the  address  was  received. 


NOTE  B,  p.    7. 

To  such  as  have  not  given  much  attention  to 
the  subject,  these  statements  will  probably  sound 
strange  and  somewhat  rash.  But  of  their  literal 
truth  the  writer  has  no  doubt,  and  he  confidently 
invites  his  readers  to  subject  them  to  rigorous 
scrutiny.  Let  them  only  bear  in  mind  the  pre- 
cise point  to  which  the  statements  exclusively  refer. 
There  is  no  attempt  here  made  to  dehneate  the 
constitution  of  Christ's  millennial  kingdom,  or  to 
specify  the  acts  of  righteous  judgment,  and  victori- 
ous grace,  and  creative  power,  whereby  the  king- 
dom shall  be  established,  when  the  Lord  returns 
in  person  to  the  earth,  which,  at  His  first  coming. 
He  redeemed  by  His  blood  for  His  own  inherit- 
ance    On  these  matters  students  of  the  prophetic 


NOTES.  35 

word  may  easily  differ.  The  single  question  now 
at  issue  is  this,  an^  nothing  else,  Shall  the  Lord's 
return  be  preceded  by  what  is  called  a  spiritual 
millennium  of  general  holiness  and  peace  in  this 
present  world? 

Of  that  idea,  then,  we  venture  to  say, 
1.  That  ^Ht  is  very  questionable  ivhether,  even  so 
late  as  two  hundred  years  ago,  it  had  yet  been  heard 
of  amongst  good  men."  It  is  well  known,  that  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century  the  able  and  learned 
Dr.  Whitby,  "conceiving  this  glorious  conversion 
[of  the  Jews],  .  .  .  might  be  the  very  resurrection 
intended  by  St.  John  [Eev.  xx.  4],  and  the  flourishing 
condition  and  union  both  of  the  Jewish  and  Gentile 
church  thus  raised  from  the  dead,  and  so  continu- 
ing in  peace  and  plenty,  and  a  great  increase  of 
knowledge  and  righteousness,  and  a  return  of  the 
primitive  purity  of  doctrine  and  manners,  might 
be  the  reign  of  the  Saints  on  earth  a  thousand 
years,"  expressly  speaks  of  "this"  as  a  "new  hypo- 
thesis" and  wrote  his  famous  Treatise  on  the  Blillen- 
nium  for  its  illustration  and  defence.  Certainly, 
few  men  of  "Whitby's  day  were  better  acquainted 
than  he  with  whatever  had  been  previously  written 
on  the  subject;  and  in  our  own  time  the  late 
Edward  Bickersteth,  whose  name  is  still  fragrant 
and  venerable  in  the  churches,  has  testified  that  he 
himself  was  unable  to  trace  the  "  neiv  hypothesis" 
any  further.  From  the  guarded  phraseology  of 
the  Address,  however,  it  will  be  seen  that  I  do  not 
wish  to  be  understood  as  denying  the  possibility  of 


36  NOTES. 

finding  here  and  there  suggestions  of  a  similar 
scheme,  prior  to  the  date  of  Whitby's  Treatise. 
John  Howe,  for  example,*  preached  his  fifteen  ser- 
mons on  the  Work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  reference  to 
the  Christian  Church  in  1678.  But,  as  they  were 
not  pubhshed  till  1725,  so  whether  "Christ  shall 
personally  appear  at  the  battle  of  Armageddon, 
and  shall  personally  reign  afterwards  upon  the 
earth  for  a  thousand  years,"  as  also  whether  "there 
wiU  be  any  resurrection,  before  that  time  do  com- 
mence, of  the  bodies  of  departed  saints,"  these 
Howe  treats  as  open  questions,  merely  saying  that 
he  "will  not  assert"  these  things,  and  that  he  does 
"not  think  that  any  of  these  things  are  confidently 
to  be  asserted." 

2.  "iVb^  a  trace  of  it  is  to  he  found  in  the  Standards 
of  Westminster.'^  And  it  would  be,  indeed,  a  strange 
thing  if  there  were,  when  we  remember  the  querul- 
ous report  of  good  Principal  Bailhe,  one  of  the 
five  Scotch  Commissioners  to  the  Westminster 
Assembly:  "I  marvel  I  can  find  nothing  in  it 
against  the  millenaries.  I  cannot  think  the  author 
[Forbes]  a  millenary.  I  cannot  dream  why  he 
should  have  omitted  an  error  so  famous  in  anti- 
quity, and  so  troublesome  among  us;  for  the  most  of 
the  chief  divines  here  [at  Westminster],  not  only 
Independents,  but  others,  such  as  Twisse,  Marshall, 
Palmer,  and  many  more,  are  express  Chiliasts;" — 
they  beheved,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  millennial  reign 

*  See  also  the  clcse  of  Archbishop  Tillotson's  Sermon  on  Acts  i.  3. 


NOTES.  37 

of  Christ  and  His  saints  over  tlie  renewed  earth 
after  the  resurrection.  But,  in  regard  to  the  one 
point  with  which  we  have  now  to  do,  it  would 
appear  that  there  was  actually  no  division  of  senti- 
ment whatever  in  that  illustrious  convocation.  See 
the  Confession  of  Faith,  ch.  xxxiii.,  sect.  3,  Of  the 
Last  Judgment:  "As  Christ  would  have  us  to  be 
certainly  persuaded  that  there  shall  be  a  day  of 
judgment,  both  to  deter  all  men  from  sin,  and  for  the 
greater  consolation  of  the  godly  in  their  adversity ; 
so  will  He  have  that  day  unknown  to  men,  that  they 
may  shake  off  all  carnal  security,  and  be  always 
watchful,  because  they  know  not  at  ivhat  hour  the  Lord 
will  come;  and  may  be  ever  prepared  to  say,  Come, 
Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly.  AmenJ'  I  confess  that 
I  do  not  see  how  any  man  could  intelligently 
assent  to  that  article,  and  at  the  same  time  beheve 
that  the  Lord  will  not  come  for  at  least  1000,  or  it 
may  be  360,000  years.  (On  this  branch  of  our 
inquiry  I  beg  to  refer  the  reader  to  a  small  pamph- 
let pubhshed  in  1843,  by  Grigg  &  Elliot,  of  Phila- 
delphia, of  which  I  shall  be  indulged,  for  the  sake 
of  associations  which  are  now  much  more  curious 
than  painful,  in  giving  the  title  in  full:  "Millen- 
narianism  tried  by  the  Standards  of  the  West- 
minster Assembly  of  Divines.  Being  a  statement 
presented  to  the  Presbytery  of  New  York,  at  their 
meeting,  November  22d,  1842.  By  the  Kev.  John 
LiUie,  A.  M.") 

3.  "Or  in  the  Confessions  and  other  remains  of 
the  Reformation  period."    Here  again  a  little  candid 


38  NOTES. 

discrimination  will  be  required.  Whetlier,  in  con- 
sequence of  tlie  odium  brougiit  on  the  millennarian 
name  by  tlie  frenzies  of  Miinzer  and  the  Anabap- 
tists of  the  sixteenth  century,  as  well  as  by  the  old 
Cerinthian  heresy,  or  whether  because  of  the 
opinion,  which,  under  favour  of  Eome,  had  long 
been  current  in  Christendom,  that  the  millennium, 
whether  as  a  period  of  definite  or  of  indefinite 
duration,  began  either  with  the  introduction  of 
the  gospel,  or  with  the  conversion  of  Constantine 
— and  perhaps  all  these  considerations  enter  into 
the  explanation  of  the  fact — it  is  quite  true  that 
the  Eeformers  have  little  or  nothing  to  say  for  the 
thousand  years'  reign,  while  their  denunciations  are 
frequent,  and  righteously  severe,  of  a  perverted 
and  polluted  Chiliasm.  But  that  they  did,  at  the 
same  time,  generally  and  steadfastly  hold  to  the 
ideas  of  a  restored  Israel,  and  a  renewed  earth, 
and,  in  particular,  that  not  one  of  them  ever  al- 
lowed the  modern  notion  of  an  intervening  millen- 
nium to  becloud  his  solemn,  earnest  outlook  for 
the  Lord's  Second  Coming — so  much  is  perfectly 
well  known  to  all  who  have  even  a  moderate 
acquaintance  with  their  writings. 

Of  course,  this  is  not  the  place  for  any  elaborate 
induction  of  evidence.  But,  as  these  pages  may 
be  read  by  some  to  whom  the  whole  subject  is 
new,  I  may  be  allowed  to  introduce  here  a  very  few 
such  extracts  as  come  most  readily  to  hand. 

We  take  up,  then,  at  random,  some  "Life  of 
Martin  Luther  "  (Michelet's),  and,  glancing  through 
it,  we  light  everywhere  on  things  of  this  sort : — 


NOTES.  39 

"The  last  day,  I  fully  believe,  is  not  far  from  us." 
"These  signs,  if  I  mistake  not,  announce  the  last 
day." — "Grace  and  peace  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
The  world  hastens  to  its  end,  and  I  often  think 
that  the  day  of  judgment  may  well  overtake  me 
before  I  have  finished  my  translation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  All  temporal  things  predicted  there 
are  being  fulfilled.  The  Koman  Empire  inchnes  to 
its  ruin;  the  Turk  has  reached  the  height  of  his 
power;  the  splendour  of  the  Papacy  suffers  ecHpse; 
the  world  is  cracking  in  every  corner,  as  if  about 
to  crumble  to  pieces." — "I  trust  these  are  blessed 
signs  of  the  approaching  end  of  all  things." — "I 
trust  that  with  this  rending  of  the  world  Christ 
will  hasten  His  coming,  and  crush  the  globe  to 
atoms." — Master  Philip  said  that  the  Emperor 
Charles  would  Hve  to  be  eighty-four.  Dr.  Luther 
repHed :  "  The  world  will  not  last  so  long.  Ezekiel 
is  against  it.  If  we  drive  out  the  Turk,  the  pro- 
phecy of  Daniel  is  fulfilled;  and,  of  a  certainty, 
the  day  of  judgment  is  then  at  hand." — "May  our 
Lord,  then,  come  quickly,  and  take  me  with  Him. 
May  He,  above  all,  come  with  His  day  of  judgment." 
— A  guest  of  his  said  that,  if  the  world  were  to 
last  fifty  years,  many  things  might  yet  turn  up. 
"God  forbid,"  exclaimed  Luther,  "it  would  be 
worse  than  all  the  past.  There  would  arise  many 
other  sects,  which  are  now  hidden  within  the  hearts 
of  men.  May  the  Lord  come,  and  cut  all  this 
short,  for  there  is  no  hope  of  improvement." — "The 
day  of  judgment  must  soon  come ;  for  that  the 
papal  church  should  reform  is  an  impossibility, 


40  NOTES. 

neither  will  the  Turks  and  Jews.  ...  I  see  nothing 
else  to  be  done  but  to  say,  Lord,  Thy  kingdom 
come ! " — So  much  for  Luther. 

As  for  Calvin,  let  us  try  the  prince  of  com- 
mentators on  one  or  two  texts  : — 

Luke  xviii.  8  he  calls  "a  clear  prediction  of 
Christ,  that  from  His  ascension  into  heaven  until 
His  return  men  will  everywhere  remain  in  unbe* 
lief." — On  1  Thess.  i.  10  he  remarks  :  "  Whosoever 
would  persevere  in  the  course  of  a  holy  life,  let 
him  apply  his  whole  mind  to  the  hope  of  Christ's 
coming." — At  1  Thess.  iv.  17,  he  rejects  with  horror 
certain  fi-enzies  (deliria)  which  he  charges  on  "  Ori- 
gen  and  the  Chiliasts,"  as  if  they  limited  the  reign 
of  the  Saints  with  Christ  to  a  thousand  years  ;  but 
so  far  is  he  from  expecting  the  reign  before  the 
Advent,  that  he  tells  us  immediately  before,  at  v.  15, 
that  the  Apostle's  aim,  in  speaking  of  himself  as 
one  of  those  who  should  live  till  the  Lord  come, 
was  "to  rouse  the  exxDectation  of  the  Thessalonians, 
and  so  to  hold  all  the  pious  in  suspense,  that  they 
shall  not  count  on  any  delay  whatever.  For  even 
supposing  him  to  have  known  himself,  by  special 
revelation,  that  Christ  would  come  somewhat  later, 
still  this  was  to  be  delivered  as  the  common  doct- 
rine of  the  church,  that  the  faithful  might  be  ready 
at  all  hours." — To  which  I  shall  only  add  these 
solemn  words  on  1  Pet.  iv.  7  :  "  The  end  he  speaks 
of  is  not  merely  that  of  each  several  individual, 
but  the  entire  renovation  of  the  world ;  as  if  he 
said  that  Christ  will  shortly  come,  and  put  an  end 
to  all  things.     It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  if  we 


•  NOTES.  41 

are  overwiielmed  by  worldly  cares,  and  held  in 
slumber,  or  if  tbe  sight  of  present  things  dazzles 
our  eyes;  because  we  do  all  commonly  promise 
ourselves  an  eternity  in  this  world ;  never,  at  least, 
does  the  end  come  into  mind.  "Whereas,  did  the 
trump  of  Christ  sound  in  our  ears,  it  would  keenly 
smite  all  our  senses,  nor  suffer  them  to  He  thus 
torpid.  It  might  be  objected,  however,  that  a  long 
series  of  ages  has  elapsed  since  Peter  wrote  this, 
and  still  the  end  is  not  seen.  I  answer,  that  to 
us  the  time  seems  long,  for  this  reason,  that  we 
measure  its  length  by  the  spaces  of  the  present 
life,  but  that,  could  we  have  respect  to  the  per- 
petuity of  the  life  to  come,  many  generations  would 
be  for  us  as  it  were  a  moment ;  2  Pet.  iii.  8.  More- 
over, IT  MUST  BE  HELD  AS  A  FIRST  PRINCIPLE,  that,  eVBT 

since  the  appearing  of  Christ,  there  is  nothing  left  to 
the  faithful,  but  with  wakeful  minds  to  be  always 
intent  on  His  Second  AdventP — Let  it  not  offend 
any,  if  they  now  discover,  for  the  first  time,  that 
a  genuine,  unmutilated  Calvinism  embraces  more 
"points"  than  they  had  supposed. 

In  the  case  of  the  great  Scottish  Keformer,  I 
avail  myself  of  the  following  passage  from  the  Rev. 
A.  A.  Bonar's  "Redemption  Drawing  Nigh,^^  a  book 
which  would  no  doubt  have  been  republished 
amongst  us  long  ago,  but  that  it  contains  a  httle 
too  much  of  hitherto  unrecognized  truth: — "The 
incidental  manner  in  which  John  Knox  refers  to  it" 
[the  Blessed  Hope],  "is  sufficient  to  show  the  place 
it  habitually  held  in  his  mind.  His  letter  to  the 
*' Faithful  in  London,  Newcastle  and  Berwick,'  has 


42  NOTES. 

this  clause  also  in  its  title, — 'And  to  all  others 
within  the  realm  of  England  that  love  the  Coming 
of  our  Lord  JesusJ  He  writes  another  '  Comfortable 
epistle,  sent  to  the  afflicted  Church  of  Christ,  ex- 
horting them  to  bear  His  cross  with  patience,  look- 
ing every  hour  for  Mis  coming  again,  to  the  great 
comfort  and  consolation  of  His  chosen.'  His  letter 
to  his  mother-in-law  has  this  sentence  prefixed  to 
the  salutation,  'He  comes  and  shall  not  tarry,  in 
whom  is  our  comfort  and  final  felicity.'  And  in 
his  *  Treatise  on  Fasting,'  he  yet  more  clearly  shows 
what  his  noble  spirit  felt  to  be  desirable  in  that 
day.  *What  were  this  also,'  he  exclaims,  'but  to 
reform  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  which  never 
was,  nor  yet  shall  be,  till  that  righteous  King  and 
Judge  appear  for  the  restoration  of  all  things.'" 
Similar  glowing  utterances  follow  from  Princi- 
pal Bollock,  John  Welsh,  and  others.  But  what 
has  already  been  given  will  suffice  for  the  Beform- 
ers,  especially  when  we  have  such  a  testimony  as 
this,  concerning  the  whole  of  them,  from  Bishop 
Latimer's  third  sermon  on  the  Lord's  Prayer: 
"  Therefore,  all  those  excellent  learned  men  whom, 
without  doubt,  God  hath  sent  into  this  world  in 
these  latter  days  to  give  the  world  warning — all 
those  men  do  gather  out  of  sacred  scripture  that 
the  last  day  cannot  be  far  off.  And  this  is  most 
certain  and  sure,  that,  whensoever  He  cometh. 
He  cometh  not  too  timely:  for  all  things  which 
ought  to  come  before  are  passed  now :  so  that  if 
He  come  this  night  or  to-morrow  He  cometh  not 
too  early." 


NOTES.  43 

4.  ^'And  quite  as  little  in  the  writings  of  the 
Fathers."  This,  it  will  be  observed,  is  a  still  more 
sweeping  assertion  tlian  tliat  of  Dr.  Shedd,  in  tlie 
singularly  inadequate  and,  I  say  it  reluctantly, 
somewhat  unfair  chapter  on  miUennarianism,  in 
his  History  of  Christian  Doctrine.  "There  are  no 
traces  of  Chiliasm,"  he  says,  "  in  the  writings  of " 
certain  Fathers  whom  he  names,  and  then,  with 
rather  hasty  logic,  he  "infers  that  this  tenet  was 
not  the  received  faith  of  the  church,  certainly  down 
to  the  year  150."  It  would  have  been  more  to  the 
purpose,  could  he  have  pointed  out  any  traces  of 
opposition  to  ChiHasm  in  the  writings  either  of  those 
particular  Fathers,  or  of  any  others  within  that 
period.  For  it  seems  to  be  conceded  that  every 
one  of  the  Apostolical  Fathers,  who  says  anything  at 
all  on  the  subject,  is  a  Ghiliast.  And  that  all  the  rest 
were  not  less  so,  would  be  no  very  violent  inference 
from  the  fact,  recognized  by  Dr.  S.  himself,  that 
"  so  general  had  the  tenet  become  in  the  last  half 
of  the  second  century,  that  Justin  Martyr  declares 
that  it  was  the  belief  of  all  but  the  Gnostics." 

Our  immediate  concern,  however,  let  the  reader 
once  more  be  reminded,  is  not  with  Chiliasm.  We 
likewise  freely  admit,  that  in  the  third  and  subse- 
quent centuries  the  Church  lost  the  ardour  of  her 
early  longing  for  her  Lord's  return,  and  that,  as 
the  natural  consequence  of  that,  as  weU  as  of  the 
abominations  charged — Mosheim  thinks,  unjustly^ 
on  Cerinthus,  and  the  great  authority  of  Origen 
with  his  monstrous  system  of  allegorical  interpre- 
tation, to  say  nothing  of  the  groYring  ascendency 


44  NOTES. 

of  Eome,  she  gradually  relaxed  her  hold  on  the 
primitive  faith.  But,  in  spite  of  all  this,  we  can 
but  renew  the  invitation  for  any  one  to  show,  that 
any  one  of  the  Fathers,  in  any  of  the  centuries, 
held  to  anything  like  what  we  may  call  the  modern 
missionary  millennium.  Augustine  himself,  who  is 
sometimes  absurdly  named  as  in  some  way  responsi- 
ble for  it,  taught  expressly,  in  his  strange  exegesis 
of  Eev.  XX.,  that  the  binding  of  Satan  and  the  mil- 
lennial reign  began  when  the  Church  advanced 
beyond  Judea,  and  continue  all  through  the  times 
of  Antichrist's  tyranny,  which  ends  only,  as  he 
clearly  perceived,  with  the  Lord's  advent.  (See 
chapters  7-13  of  the  De  Civitate  Dei.) 


NOTE  C,  p.    12. 


Of  this  commendable  moderation  of  the  speaker 
a  somewhat  odd,  and  perhaps  ingenious,  use  was 
made  by  the  excellent  Secretary  of  the  General 
Assembly's  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  in  the 
remarks,  of  course  not  official,  with  which  he  "felt 
himseK  called  upon"  to  follow  the  deHvery  of  the 
Address.  With  grave  earnestness  he  assured  the 
audience  that  "the  Old  Testament  is  as  much  the 
word  of  God  as  the  New"! 

Was  not,  then,  my  friend  aware  that  the  speaker, 
and  all  who  share  his  views,  regard  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  their  own  inexhaustible  arsenal  and  im- 
pregnable stronghold  ?    Nothing,  we  are  weU  per- 


NOTES.  45 

suaded,  has  exerted  such  a  disastrous  influence  on 
the  interest  of  Bible  readers  in  general,  in  that 
wonderful  portion  of  the  Divine  oracles,  as  the 
prevailing  fast-and-loose  stjde  of  hermeneutics,  by- 
means  of  whicli,  vrith  an  ordinary  measure  of  dex- 
terity, anything  can  either  be  made  out  of  anything 
or  nothing,  or  reduced  to  nothing;  by  which,  for 
example,  the  national  Israel,  as  such,  God's  first- 
born son  (Ex.  iv.  22),  is  stripped  of  "the  glory 
and  the  covenants,  and  the  promises  "  (Eom.  ix.  4), 
and  the  Son  of  David  is  robbed  of  His  father's 
throne.     (Luke  i.  32). 

And  have  we  not  here,  also,  it  may  be  asked  in 
passing,  at  least  one  reasonable  explanation  of  the 
small  measure  of  success  that  the  Church  generally 
has  had  in  addressing  the  Jews?  "I  leave  it,"  says 
the  illustrious  Joseph  Mede,  "to  the  judgment  of 
learned  men,  and  men  well  able  to  judge  in  such- 
like mysteries  in  divinity,  whether  this  be  not  the 
best  and  readiest  way  to  deal  with  the  Jews — ^not 
to  wrest  those  plain  prophecies,  touching  things 
appertaining  to  this  last  and  glorious  coming  of 
Christ  to  His  first  coming ;  for,  while  we  do  so,  the 
Jews  laugh  and  scorn  at  us,  and  are  hardened  in 
their  infideUty."  * 

But  now  as  to  the  particular  point  in  hand,  the 
reader  will  probably  acquit  the  sj^eaker  of  any  dis- 
position to  shrink  from  Old  Testament  tests,  if  he 
will  take  the  trouble  to  examine  with  care  the  few 


*  See  much  more  to  the  same  effect  in  The  (New  York)  Jewish  Clironicle, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  12-li,  and  vol.  iv.  pp.  27i-276. 


46  NOTES. 

passages  liere  subjoined — (and  at  every  step  I  am 
compelled  to  drop  scores  of  passages  equally  suit- 
able),— applying  to  them  no  other  principles  of 
interpretation  tlian  such  as  he  would  employ  in  the 
case  of  any  other  writing  that  was  meant,  not  to 
bewilder,  but  to  be  understood  ;  they  will  then  be 
found  to  include  every  point  mentioned  in  the 
Address : — Deut.  xxxii.  36-43 ;  Psalm  Ixix.  34^36 ; 
Psalm  xcviii.;  cii.  13-28;  Is.  ii.,  iv.,  xi.,  xxiv.  1,  23; 
XXV.  6-8  (compared  with  1  Cor.  xv.  54);  xxvii.  1, 
(comp.  Eev.  xx.  1-3);  xlix.  13-26  ;  lix.  17-21;  Ix., 
&c.  ;  Jer.  iii.  16-18  ;  Dan.  xii.  1-2  (comp.  Matt, 
xxiv.  21 ;  Kev.  xvi.  18);  Joel  iii.  9-21  ;  Mic.  v.  3-15; 
Zech.  ii.  10-13;  viii.  7-23;  xii.  2-10;  xiv. 


NOTE  D,  p.   15. 


It  will  help  the  reader  to  understand  how  such 
texts  were  handled  in  the  great  ages  of  theology, 
even  by  men  who  would  yet  have  refused  to  be 
called  "Chiliasts"  or  "Millenaries,"  if  we  here  in- 
sert part  of  the  comment  of  Parens,  the  famous 
doctor  of  Heidelberg,  on  Matt.  xxiv.  14: — 

"Now  this  universal  preaching  is  not  to  be 
understood  strictly — ^in  which  sense  it  never  will 
happen  that  the  gos^Dcl  shall  be  preached  absolutely 
to  all  nations  at  once  (for  there  will  be  a  perpetual 
separation  of  the  Church  and  the  world) — ^but  by 
synecdoche  0r  distribution;  it  shall  be  preached, 
not  to  the  Jews  alone,  but  to  other  nations  also, 


NOTES.  47 

without  distinction  of  people However  it  may- 
be with  the  new  world,  or  other  regions  still  hidden 
from  ns,  it  is  a  false  interpretation  of  our  Lord's 
words,  as  if  there  were  not  to  be  a  spot  on  the 
earth's  surface,  where  the  gospel  shall  not  be 
preached.  For  it  is  a  thing  never  to  be  looked 
for,  that  the  whole  world  shall  become  Christian; 
since  the  enemies  of  the  Church,  together  with 
Antichrist,  shall  not  cease  but  at  the  last  coming 
of  Christ.  Christ  must  rule  in  the  midst  of  ene- 
mies, until  all  are  made  his  footstool,  which  will  be 
at  the  end  of  the  age," — in  fine  saeculi. 

Compare  the  universal  terms  in  which  Paul 
describes  the  spread  of  the  evangehcal  testimony 
even  in  his  day,  Col.  i.  6,  23. 


NOTE  E,  p.   16. 

Once  or  twice  during  the  Sessions  of  Synod, 
allusion  was  made  to  the  parables  of  the  mustard 
seed  and  of  the  leaven  (Matt.  xiii.  31-33),  as  favour- 
ing the  ordinary  view ;  and  it  is  very  natural, 
that  such  as  would  chng  to  that  view  should  be- 
take themselves  to  the  single  spot  in  all  the  New 
Testament,  which,  seen  from  a  distance,  might  seem 
to  promise  a  much-needed  standpoint  amid  the 
sweUing  waters.  But  there  too,  I  think,  they  are 
likely  to  find  their  footing  quite  as  unsteady,  as  the 
space  is  certainly  limited. 


48  NOTES. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  a  radical  difference 
amongst  commentators  as  to  the  general  interpre- 
tation of  these  two  parables;  some  referring  the 
development  of  the  wide-branching  tree  from  the 
least  of  all  seeds  to  the  growth  of  the  hierarchy 
out  of  the  lowly  beginning  of  the  gospel;  and  the 
leaven,  to  the  working  of  Divine  grace  in  the  indi- 
vidual believer,  or  else — and  it  is  true  that  the 
symbol  of  leaven  is  always  elsewhere  in  Scripture 
used  in  a  bad  sense* — ^to  the  corruptions  that  were 
to  overspread  and  pervade  the  Church. 

2.  But  let  us  take  both  parables  together,  as  they 
are  commonly  understood,  of  genuine  Christianity 
in  the  world  ;  and  then  the  prominent  ideas  are  the 
smaUness  of  its  beginning,  its  continuous  existence, 
inward  force,  outward  expansion,  and  ultimate  uni- 
versal triumph. 

3.  Comparing,  indeed,  the  obscurity  of  the  man- 
ger of  Bethlehem,  and  the  upper  room  at  Jerusalem, 
with  what  has  already  sprung  from  them,  no  one 
would  say,  even  if  the  Church  were  now  to  perish 
from  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  that  the  prophecy  of 
the  mustard  seed  had  failed  of  a  wondrous  fulfil- 
ment. 

4  And  as  for  the  parable  of  the  leaven,  it  is, 
(1.),  simply  impossible,  whatever  else  it  teaches, 
that  our  Lord  could  have  meant  to  teach  by  it,  that 
the  consummation  represented  by  the  leavening  of 


*  Dr.  A.  Alexander — whose  own  judgment,  however,  would  seem  to  incline 
to  the  above  interpretation—excepts  Lev.  xsiii.  17 ;  but  see  Bonar's  Com- 
mentary on  that  verso. 


NOTES.  49 

(he  whole  was  to  be  reached  prior  to  the  end  of  the 
world  or  age ;  because  that  were  palpably,  and  in 
the  same  breath,  to  contradict  His  own  exposition 
of  the  parables  of  the  tares  and  the  drag-net.  And 
(2.),  it  is  no  less  absurd  to  insist  on  a  resemblance 
at  all  points  between  the  manner  of  the  leaven*s 
operation,  "till  the  whole  was  leavened,"  and  that  in 
which  the  Church  advances  towards  her  millennial 
glory.  There  are  not  a  few  points  in  which  the 
analogy  breaks  down  entirely.  For  instance,  the 
"three  measures  of  meal,"  into  which  the  leaven 
was  introduced,  remain  the  same  three  measures 
throughout ;  but  it  will  not  be  contended  that  the 
uncounted  milHons  of  the  apostolic  age,  and  of  the 
subsequent  ages,  who  died  uninfluenced  by  the  gos- 
pel, are  yet  to  be  assimilated  by  its  transforming 
power.  Then,  the  leaven  had  not  to  struggle  with, 
and  overcome,  any  counteracting  element;  how 
different  with  the  gospel!  Again,  every  step,  so  to 
speak,  that  the  leaven  made  in  its  advance,  it  con- 
tinued to  hold ;  but  in  how  many  countries,  where 
the  gospel  once  greatly  flourished,  has  it  died  out! 
And,  lastly,  the  leavening  process  goes  forward 
through  the  mass  steadily  and  without  pause; 
whereas,  since  the  first  centuries,  and  excepting  in 
new  countries  settled  by  the  European  races,  the 
gospel  has  made  scarcely  any  outward  progress  at 
aU, 

In  these  particulars,  it  is  evident,  there  is  no 

likeness,  but  a  marked  contrast,  between  the  two 

cases.     It  may  even  be  that  a  larger  measui-e  than 

has  been  generally  recognized,  of  the  significance  of 

3 


50  NOTES. 

the  parable,  lies  coueliecl  in  the  hiding  of  the  leaven ; 
as  if  it  remained  hidden  overnight,  working,  in- 
deed, but  silently  and  unseen,  until  in  the  morn- 
ing, when  examined,  lo,  "the  whole  was  leavened! " 
And  so,  with  regard  to  the  Divine  grace  in  the  gos- 
pel, what  we  are  to  think  of  is  its  secret  but  resist- 
less force,  and  the  grandeur  of  the  result,  and  not 
either  the  unbroken  flow,  or  the  abrupt  stages,  by 
which  that  result  should  be  reached.  It  is,  in  fact, 
a  common  characteristic  of  prophecy  to  deal  only 
with  the  crisis  or  consummation,  and  overlook  pre- 
liminary details.  The  Angel  of  the  Annunciation, 
in  foretelling  the  greatness  of  the  Virgin's  Child 
(Luke  i.  30-33),  said  nothing  of  the  cross,  and 
the  grave,  and  the  resurrection. 


NOTE  F,  p.  IT. 

Last  year  (from  May  1st,  1864,  to  May  1st,  1865) 
the  entire  income  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  was  "larger  than  in  any  preceding  year,  the 
receipts  being"  (according  to  the  Abstract  of  the 
Annual  Report  in  the  Assembly's  Minutes,  $271,621.12  ; 
but,  according  to  the  Report  itself)  $211,101.12.  De- 
ducting from  this  the  sum  of  $51,438.38,  received  from 
legacies,  another  religious  body,  and  friends  in  foreign 
lands,  we  have  $214,263.34  contributed  during  the  year 
by  232,450  communicants,  or  a  fraction  over  92  cents 
a  head,  for  the  conversion  of  the  world !  And  yet  I 
doubt  whether  the  average  rate  in  other  churches  was 


NOTES.  51 

even  so  high  as  that.  Indeed,  the  same  Report  in- 
forms us  that,  in  answer  to  a  special  appeal  issued  by 
the  Executive  Committee  in  September,  "the  grace  of 
giving  was  signally  exemplified." 

All  this,  while  the  City  of  JS'ew  York  alone  is  spend- 
ing, we  are  told,  its  $5,000,000  yearly  on  its  amusements, 
and  more  than  half  of  Christ's  laborious  ministers  in  this 
prosperous  land  are  struggling — very  many  of  them 
struggling  in  vain — to  pay  for  their  daily  bread.  Pres- 
byterian as  I  am,  I  cannot  help  thinking  now  and  then, 
that,  if  nothing  less  will  serve  us  at  present  than  the 
conversion  of  the  whole  world,  the  first  thing  in  order 
is  the  conversion  of  the  Church. 


JS^OTE  G,  p.  18. 


I  do  not  feel  it  to  be  necessary,  either  to  suppress  or 
modify  the  sentence  to  which  this  note  refers,  because 
our  well-beloved  Secretary  deemed  it  expedient  to  de- 
clare, in  the  face  of  the  Synod,  that,  if  he  could  believe 
that  the  view  advocated  in  the  Address  was  the  true 
one,  his  own  zeal  in  the  cause  would  be  seriously  im- 
paired. Some,  perhaps,  may  have  thought  at  the  time, 
of  Jonah's  petulant  refusal  to  deliver  the  Divme  mes- 
sage, because  the  result,  he  suspected,  was  not  likely 
to  be  according  to  his  wishes. 

His  missionary  zeal  impaired,  if  the  world  is  not  to 
be  converted  before  Christ  appears !     Were  it  really  so, 
what  less  could  be  said,  than  that  his  zeal  must  be 
of  a  difTerent  sort,  and  rest  on  a  very  different  basis, 


52  NOTES. 

from  the  zeal  of  Paul,  who  was  quite  willing  to  struggle 
on  and  die,  "if  he  might  by  all  means  save  some/' 
(1  Cor.  ix.  22) — from  that  of  all,  who  in  past  ages 
have  been  strengthened  to  do  the  mightiest  things  for 
Christ  and  His  truth  (see  Note  B) — from  that  of  his 
own  martyred  brother,*  who  also  laboured  and  died  in 
the  light  of  this  blessed  hope — from  that  of  the  many 
other  missionaries  on  heathen  ground,  who  tell  us 
plainly  that  one  of  the  strongest  influences,  by  which 
their  hearts  are  kept  from  sinking  utterly  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  small  results  of  their  best  efforts,  comes 
from  this  same  maligned  view  of  the  purposes  of  God. 

I  said,  were  it  really  so  ;  for  most  certainly  it  is  not 
so.  In  his  needless  apprehension  of  injury  to  the  cause, 
which  he  loves  and  so  faithfully  serves,  the  Secretary  did 
himself  injustice,  or  rather  he  wronged  the  grace  given 
unto  him.  Probably  no  man  in  the  Church  feels  more 
habitually  or  more  strongly  than  he  the  full  force  of 
most  of  the  scriptural  motives  to  missionary  exertion, 
such  as  the  plain  commandment  of  Christ,  and  His  uni- 
versal power — the  spirit  of  Christian  compassion  for  the 
perishing — the  universal  need  of  the  gospel,  and  its 
universal  adaptation — together  with  the  fact  that,  as 
there  is  no  other  way  of  human  salvation  than  that 
which  the  gospel  makes  known,  so  neither  is  there  any 
other  instrumentality  employed  for  guiding  men  into 
that  way,  than  the  gospel  preached  among  all  nations 
for  the  obedience  of  faith.  Let  him  only  combine  with 
these  considerations — substituting  it  in  the  place  of  the 
secular  ghtter  of  the  "new  hypothesis" — this  other 

*  Tlie  Kev.  Walter  M.  Lowrie. 


NOTES.  *    53 

scriptural  thought  —  a  thought  most  precious,  one 
should  suppose,  to  all  who  love  the  Lord — that,  just  as 
soon  as  the  special  work  of  this  Gentile  dispensation  is 
accomphshed,  in  the  gathering  of  the  "  Church  of  the 
first-born" — "the  first-fruits  unto  God  and  to  the 
Lamb  "  (Heb.  xii.  23  ;  Rev.  xiv.  4),  the  Desire  of  all 
nations  will  come  again  to  fulfil  His  people's  joy. 

In  the  meanwhile,  that  so  good  a  man  should  have 
been  tempted,  even  under  what  he  may  have  considered 
a  severe  provocation,  into  making  such  an  avowal  in  the 
presence  of  his  brethren,  and  in  the  assurance,  no  doubt, 
of  the  sympathy  of  many,  was  to  me,  I  confess,  and  to 
some  others,  proof  enough  of  the  timeliness  of  the 
Address.  v 

"  Come,  then.  Christian  reader,  and  partake  with  us 
of  this  blessed  hope,  and  of  these  Scriptural  and  holy 
joys.  They  are  not  the  novelties  of  the  day,  but  the  old 
paths  in  which  the  flock  has  walked  from  the  very  be- 
ginning. They  are  not  modern  inventions,  l)ut  they 
pervade  the  Bible  from  Genesis  to  Revelation.  They 
are  not  new  things  m  Christianity;  the  early  fathers  and 
martyrs  firmly  believed  them,  and  died  in  the  faith  of 
them.  They  humble  man,  they  exalt  the  Saviour,  and 
they  promote  holiness.  Search  the  Scriptures,  see  them 
plainly  there,  believe  them,  confess  them,  and  spread 
them  through  the  earth." — Bickersteth,  Restoration  of 
the  Jews. 


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